1.
The Voyage Across the Impossible (1904)
Role:
Mabouloff
Georges Méliès made his directorial debut in the 1896 French black-and-white silent actuality film ‘Playing Cards.’ The film was a remake of the 1895 French black-and-white short film, ‘The Messers. Lumière at Cards.’ That same year, he directed numerous other films including ‘Conjuring,’ ‘Watering the Flowers (comical subject),’ ‘The Rag-Picker, or a Good Joke,’ ‘Post No Bills,’ ‘A Terrible Night,’ ‘Arrival of a Train (Joinville Station),’ ‘Miss de Vère,’ ‘The Vanishing Lady,’ and ‘Tom Old Boot (a grotesque dwarf).’ In 1897, the first film he directed was ‘The Mardi Gras Procession.’ He went on to direct short films such as ‘The Mardi Gras Procession,’ ‘A Funny Mahometan,’ ‘An Hallucinated Alchemist,’ ‘Le Château hanté,’ ‘The School for Sons-in-law,’ ‘The Last Cartridges,’ ‘Sea Fighting in Greece,’ ‘The Bewitched Inn,’ ‘After the Ball,’ ‘Le Magnétiseur,’ and ‘Attack of an English Blockhouse.’ In 1898, he came to direct the French short silent film ‘A Novice at X-Rays.’ The film took its inspiration from George Albert Smith’s 1897 British short silent comedy film, ‘The X-Rays.’
He next directed ‘The Blowing up of the "Maine" in Havana Harbor’ (1898), ‘Combat naval devant Manille’ (1898), ‘Le Magicien’ (1898), ‘Adventures of William Tell’ (1898), ‘The Cave of the Demons’ (1898), ‘Temptation of St. Anthony’ (1898), ‘The Bridegroom's Dilemma’ (1899), ‘Haggard's "She"—The Pillar of Fire’ (1899), ‘A Mysterious Portrait’ (1899), ‘Christ Walking on the Water’ (1899), ‘Suicide of Colonel Henry’ (1899), and ‘The Mysterious Knight’ (1899). In 1900, Méliès directed ‘Paris Exposition,’ a series of seventeen short French silent actuality films. The series was a documentary based on ‘The Exposition Universelle of 1900.’ In 2008, a filmography record of Méliès prepared by Jacques Malthête suggested that all seventeen films of the ‘Paris Exposition’ were lost. Méliès continued to direct films like ‘Thanking the Audience’ (1900), ‘The Christmas Dream’ (1900), ‘The Doctor and the Monkey’ (1900), ‘The Brahmin and the Butterfly’ (1901), ‘Red Riding Hood’ (1901), ‘L'Antre des esprits’ (1901), ‘Excelsior!’ (1901), ‘L'Homme à la tête en caoutchouc’ (1901), ‘Éruption volcanique à la Martinique’ (1902), ‘La Clownesse fantôme’ (1902), ‘Une indigestion’ (1902), ‘Le Cake-Walk infernal’ (1903), ‘The Enchanted Well’ (1903), ‘The Oracle of Delphi’ (1903), ‘Tom Tight et Dum Dum’ (1903), and ‘Le Bourreau turc’ (1903).
The year 1904 saw the release of the French short silent film ‘Tit for Tat’ directed by Méliès. The paper print of the film is preserved at the Library of Congress. He next directed ‘Every Man His Own Cigar Lighter’ (1904), ‘The Mermaid’ (1904), ‘The Barber of Sevilla’ (1904), ‘Détresse et Charité’ (1904), ‘The Living Playing Cards’ (1905), ‘The Lilliputian Minuet’ (1905), ‘The Mysterious Island’ (1905), ‘Rip's Dream’ (1905), ‘A Mix-up in the Gallery’ (1906), ‘A Desperate Crime’ (1906), ‘The Merry Frolics of Satan’ (1906), and ‘The Witch’ (1906). In 1907, he directed the silent film ‘Under the Seas.’ The film was a parody of Jules Verne’s 1870 novel, ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.’ He next directed films like ‘Tunneling the English Channel’ (1907), Shakespeare Writing "Julius Caesar" (1907), ‘Delirium in a Studio’ (1907), ‘Humanity Through Ages’ (1908), ‘In the Barber Shop’ (1908), ‘The Miser’ (1908), ‘Love and Molasses’ (1908), ‘Not Guilty’ (1908), ‘The Living Doll’ (1908), ‘The Doctor's Secret’ (1909), ‘The Fiendish Tenant’ (1909), ‘Les Hallucinations du baron de Münchausen’ (1911), and ‘Le Chevalier des Neiges’ (1912). Méliès last directed the 1912 French silent film ‘The Voyage of the Bourrichon Family.’
